The uproar had sent Wilbert and Clara diving for cover, but at the end of the commotion it was Nora who had conceded defeat. She knew only too well that her daughter could get lodgings anywhere for a great deal less than fifteen shillings, and she was not about to cut off her nose to spite her face.
When Abby turned the corner of Trimdon Street, she saw James waiting for her. Her heart leaped but she continued walking steadily towards him without a change of expression. She’d already made a fool of herself by all but declaring she thought she was his lass; she had to be circumspect this evening, however she was feeling inside.
‘Hello.’ He came striding to meet her, his face one big smile, and in spite of all Abby had told herself she found the blood was singing through her veins. She couldn’t prevent her voice from trembling a little as she greeted him, but she hoped he hadn’t noticed.
He looked so handsome but he seemed almost a stranger. The formal business suit he wore for the office had been replaced by a fine tweed jacket and beautifully cut Oxford bags and suede shoes.
‘Father’s partner is on call tonight so I’ve got the car,’ he said happily. ‘How about we try the Regal in Holmeside? I understand they’re showing
The Lady Vanishes.
Do you like Alfred Hitchcock?’
Abby wasn’t about to admit the only time she had been to a picture palace since the penny matinees as a child was when her father had taken her and Wilbert to see
The Bride of Frankenstein
three years before, on her brother’s birthday. And then it hadn’t been anywhere so grand as the Regal, the most luxurious cinema in Sunderland. She simply nodded, saying, ‘Aye, yes I do,’ her cheeks pink.
‘Good.’ He smiled at her. And then, his voice faintly throaty, he said, ‘I’m glad you haven’t had your hair cut in one of those bob things all the girls seem to go for these days.’ His eyes moved to the thick shining coil of hair at the back of her head. ‘It would be a crime to spoil it.’
‘Thank you.’ She was even pinker.
He cleared his throat and took her elbow as they began walking to where he had parked his father’s Austin 7. ‘I’ve wanted to ask you to come out with me one evening from the day you came for the interview but I didn’t dare hope you felt the same as me.’
Abby found herself too taken aback - more from the look on his face than the words themselves - to reply for a moment. And then, reminding herself he might just be being kind after her remark about him being her lad, she said, ‘Well, you did in the end - ask me out, I mean.’
They reached the car but James did not immediately open the passenger door. Instead he drew her gently round to face him, looking down into the velvet brown of her eyes. ‘I’d promised myself I wouldn’t rush things, Abby, but I want you to know - well, what I mean is, I really like you.’ And then he shook his head, his voice wry as he said, ‘I’m making a right mess of this, aren’t I?’ He took a deep breath. ‘I think I’m trying to say that even if your mother isn’t too happy about you walking out with someone, I hope that won’t stop you seeing me.’
She stared at him, and the silence stretched. He fiddled with the collar of his shirt, looking uncomfortable. It was enough for Abby to pull herself together. ‘No, it won’t.’ She smiled widely.
‘Good.’ He grinned at her. ‘For a minute there I thought I’d said the wrong thing.’ He squeezed her hand, his eyes still on her face even as he opened the car door and settled her inside the vehicle.
Abby looked at James as he walked round the bonnet of the car and he was still grinning like a Cheshire cat. She bit hard on her bottom lip to stop herself doing the same. Here she was sitting in an automobile for the first time in her life and James Benson wanted her to be his lass! This was going to be a
lovely
evening.
It was a wonderful evening. From the first moment they walked into the extravagant foyer, Abby was in awe of her surroundings, even before James purchased tickets for the royal circle at two whole shillings each. A large box of chocolates tied with an enormous pink bow followed, and when they were shown to their seats she felt like pinching herself to make sure it wasn’t all a fantastic dream.
The cinema’s band, the Eagles, played before the programme commenced, and again between the main film, the newsreel, the magician doing his tricks and the short cartoon, and in the interval the Regal’s mighty Compton organ came up and the organist entertained everyone while they ate their ice creams. By the time they re-emerged into the warm darkness of the late July evening, Abby knew James must have guessed she hadn’t been to the Regal before, but by then it didn’t matter.
‘I don’t want the evening to end.’ In the car, James turned to her, his blue eyes glittering in the shadows.
Neither did Abby. She had noticed more than one pair of female eyes turn in his direction for a second look, and although she’d felt proud he had chosen to be with her above any other lass, she’d been surprised at how jealous she’d felt too.
‘Do you fancy coming dancing on Saturday at the Empire? Lew Stone was there a few weeks ago and I think Billy Cotton’s on for Saturday. Anyway, it’ll be a good band at the Empire whoever it is, it always is.’ Added to which he’d get to hold her as close as he wanted, for some of the evening at least.
She didn’t have a dance dress or shoes but she had Saturday to find what she needed. Abby nodded. ‘Yes, please.’
‘Great.’ He smiled at her. ‘My pals are going to be pea-green with envy that I’ve got the most beautiful girl in the world on my arm.’
She giggled, and then, as his face came nearer, she knew he was going to kiss her and she became very still. His mouth was warm and firm, the kiss was everything she’d dreamed her first kiss from a lad would be and now he was so close she could smell a faint spicy perfume coming from his skin and it was intoxicating.
As for James, he couldn’t believe what the feel of her lips, even tightly closed as they were, was doing to him. He had sown quite a few wild oats during his university years; the sudden freedom from the tight restrictions of being an only child and the apple of his mother’s eye, not to mention the willingness of some of the liberated young ladies with whom he had associated, had gone to his head. But not even with Mary, his first lover who had taken great delight in initiating him into the pleasures of the flesh - she was studying to be a doctor and needed to be conversant with the male anatomy, she’d teased - had he felt like this. But then he hadn’t loved Mary, nor she him for that matter, and therein lay the difference. He might have known her only a few weeks but Abby had taken over his mind and his heart.
‘I’d better get you home.’ Reluctantly he forced himself to draw away and start the engine, his body as hard as a rock beneath the wide trousers he was wearing. Glancing at the box of chocolates Abby was clutching, he added, ‘What are you going to do with that? Your mother will guess you’ve seen a lad if you walk in with it.’
Abby looked down at the box. It was beautiful, a picture on the lid of a thatched cottage with roses round the door, and it still contained half the chocolates even though she and James had eaten loads. She would keep this box for ever and ever as a reminder of this magical night. ‘I don’t care.’ And suddenly she didn’t. ‘I’m nearly eighteen, for goodness sake, it’s not as if I’ve just left school or something. I shall tell her about you if she says anything.’
‘You will?’ He suddenly felt ten feet tall. If she was going to brave her mother’s wrath, it had to mean she was serious about him, didn’t it? ‘You will?’ he repeated, his voice low now and soft as he touched the silky skin of her face with the tip of one finger. And as she nodded, blushing rosy pink but holding his gaze, he kissed her again.
PART TWO
Goodbyes
1939
Chapter Five
‘
I
am speaking to you from the Cabinet Room of Ten Downing Street. This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German government a final note stating that unless we had heard from them by eleven o’clock that they were prepared to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this nation is at war with Germany.’
‘Oh, Da.’ Abby was clutching her father so tightly her knuckles were showing white. ‘It’s happened.’
Wilbert switched off the wireless and looked at his sister, his voice verging on the scornful as he said, ‘You’re not surprised, are you? What do you think all the preparations have been about the last year or so, with the air raid wardens and the shelters and everything? You said yourself your firm’s organised their switchboard so it can be used by other companies and the ARP.’
‘Aye, that’s all very well, lad, but it’s still a shock when the unimaginable happens. And that’s what this war will be, make no mistake.’ Raymond’s voice was grim. ‘He’s a maniac, that Hitler, and he’s got to be stopped, there’s no doubt about that, but the cost’ll be high.’
‘That’s right, frighten everyone to death.’ Nora glared at her husband. Like the majority of the housewives round about she had refused to believe there would be another war, regarding the ARP service and especially the wardens with some contempt. The only time she had shown a spark of interest was when it had been suggested they might like to share one of the brick surface shelters with her sister’s household. This had come to nothing, however, when Ivor had insisted the backyards weren’t big enough what with the wash house and privies, even though several families in their street and the ones surrounding it had installed brick shelters. The upshot of Ivor’s refusal was that both families had taken an indoor Morrison shelter instead.
Abby glanced across to the steel oblong box which normally served as a table. Her father had insisted that blankets, cushions and a torch be put inside some weeks ago, and that they all got used to climbing inside and pulling the meshed panels at the sides and ends into place. Now it looked as though they would be using the shelter for real.
Abby had no sooner thought this than the wail of air raid sirens sounded, causing them all to freeze and stare at each other for a moment. ‘Quick!’ Raymond was shouting as though the rest of them were in the next room. ‘Into the shelter, all of you. Move!’
By the time it became clear that there was no immediate threat of aerial onslaught, Clara had bumped her head and was crying loudly, Wilbert had knelt on the torch and had a lump the size of a ha’penny gobstopper on his knee, and Nora had split the seam of her Sunday dress and was blaming her husband.
‘I don’t want to go in there again.’ Clara was hiccuping her tears now. ‘And I don’t want to put that on either,’ she added, pointing to the row of gas masks sitting on the kitchen window sill. ‘They’re smelly and horrible.’
‘Come on, pet.’ Abby lifted her sister into her arms. ‘I tell you what, if you’re a good lass you can come for a little ride in James’s car this afternoon. Just round the streets for a few minutes so Betty Skelton and Hilda Wright can see you. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’
Clara grinned at Abby and nodded. Betty and Hilda were her two best friends but when she had told them that her sister had a lad with a big car and that they had taken her for a ride in it, they’d said she was telling fibs. But Abby had shown them, Clara thought complacently. The very next Sunday after she had come home in tears because they had fallen out with her for telling lies, Abby and James had taken her for a ride and stopped right outside Betty’s house. Betty’s eyes had been like saucers. Clara wriggled with ecstasy as she remembered. And the next day at school Betty had given her a whole bag of bullets and Hilda had let her play with her new skipping rope without taking turns, and they’d never called her a liar again.
Hugging Abby’s neck she planted a wet kiss on her sister’s cheek. She loved Abby the best in all the world.
‘Excuse me but isn’t it his
father’s
car?’ Nora sniffed pointedly. ‘Good as James’s fancy job might be, I don’t think it would run to buying and running a car.’
Abby looked at her mother over Clara’s blonde head. Her mam never let up, not even on this day when war had been declared. She was like a dog with a bone as far as James was concerned and yet he had never put a foot wrong in all the time they had been seeing each other. But he’d never please her mam, Abby was reconciled to that now.
Right from that first magical night when she had walked into the kitchen with the enormous box of chocolates clutched in her arms and declared to her mother she had a lad, the atmosphere within the house had been such you could cut it with a knife. She could have understood it if she’d decided to walk out with someone like Jack McHaffie or Rory Fallow, who were no strangers to the local constable and the prison cells, but James? Her Aunty Audrey had declared James was the perfect suitor for any daughter. But when her mother had found out James was a doctor’s son and had been to university, and that he was training to be an accountant, you would have thought he was Jack the Ripper from the way she had reacted. Father Finlay had made another appearance, but the fact that James’s parents were Catholics, albeit nominal ones, had taken the wind out of the good Father’s sails to some extent.